


Stars

by old_starlit



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, here i go with my star obsession, most of these characters only show up briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 19:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10556514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/old_starlit/pseuds/old_starlit
Summary: The sky is a dark blue, soft velvet cloth, spread out across the night. A bird chirps, somewhere, and a wind whips through his thin clothes and he shivers.His fingers brush the stars. They’re so bright, so beautiful, and he wants to take them all for himself. A foot wanders too close to the edge and he jolts back before turning back to the sky.The corners of his lips twitch up and the stars smile back.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoyalMermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalMermaid/gifts).



John closes his eyes.

Takes a breath in. Lets it out.

Opens his eyes.

He’s sixteen, standing on the very edge of the roof of his house (or, well, _mansion_ , he corrects himself). He’s so very high up now and it’s dark. He could trip and fall and break all the bones in his body.

He reaches out towards the sky, fingers skimming the stars. He’s so close, he could grab one.

The sky is a dark blue, soft velvet cloth, spread out across the night. A bird chirps, somewhere, and a wind whips through his thin clothes and he shivers.

His fingers brush the stars. They’re so bright, so beautiful, and he wants to take them all for himself. A foot wanders too close to the edge and he jolts back before turning back to the sky.

The corners of his lips twitch up and the stars smile back.

* * *

He’s eleven, and his mother his pointing out constellations from a big, thick book with words too big and text too small. The one page of pictures is nonsensical and he tells her that, and his mother laughs.

“That’s Scorpio. It looks like a scorpion, doesn’t it?” she asks, pointing to one constellation. John recognizes the name as his zodiac sign.

“It looks like dots and lines,” John scoffs and his mother laughs again. 

“You have to use your imagination, _cariño_ ,” she says, the Spanish pet name rolling easily off her tongue. John is only semi-fluent in Spanish, but he recognizes this one word, used quite often for him and his siblings. “It kind of looks like a scorpion.” She tilts her head. “If you squint.” 

“Can we see them from here?” John asks. “In _our_ sky?”

“We can see some,” his mother replies, an affectionate smile on her face. “Tonight, we could look at them together?” she offered.

John nods his head eagerly, a smile lighting up his face. His mother beams at that, ruffling his hair. “We’ll look at them together, _cariño_.”

They don’t look at the stars tonight, despite how much John wants to. He waits for his mother to come back home impatiently from a quick run to the supermarket, and worries that, as the sky darkens, that they’ll miss the stars.

His father is growing anxious, pacing the floors, back and forth, back and forth. “Jack,” he snaps, but his words are laced with worry instead of anger. “What are you doing up?”

“Mama said we could look at stars together,” John answers, staring back out the window. His father opens his mouth to respond, but his phone rings and he answers that instead. John doesn’t hear much from the conversation, but catches a few words like _serious_ , _condition_ , and _car crash_.

His father’s face is ashen and he grabs a coat and tells John to gather his siblings and get in the car. They drive fast and his father’s fingers are white from gripping onto the steering wheel.

They don’t make it to the hospital on time.

John doesn’t think of constellations again after that.

* * *

He’s seventeen now, and things, it seems, are changing quite quickly.

John lies on his bed, staring at his blank white ceiling, thinking. He can hear his two younger siblings, Mary Eleanor and Henry Jr, playing and Martha snapping at them to quiet down. He remembers her talking anxiously about an upcoming test.

He sighs. It’s dark in his room--he hadn’t bothered to turn on the light. He just barely sees the outline of his hand as he stretches it out in front of him. He can pretend to see the stars, if he closes his eyes.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he sits up, opening the door and blinking at the sudden light, and made his way downstairs. His legs feel like lead.

“Hey, Jack,” Martha says, and he wants to recoil from the nickname, but smiles thinly instead. “Dad says he’s running late today.” 

“Huh.” He doesn’t want his father to come home at all, because he made a promise he’d come out to the entire family today, and he’s definitely not ready.

Martha had always been the best at reading him, and today is now exception. She tilts her head, frowns. “Are you okay, Jack?” she asks carefully.

“Fine,” John says.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” The lie becomes easier with each passing day.

Martha purses her lips, clearly suspicious, but she shrugs and looks back down at her notes. “Okay.”

John sits down next to her, and settles his chin on his hands and stares.

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay?” Martha prods him with the end of the pencil.

That earns her a smile and he swats the pencil away. “Don’t worry about me, Martha.”

“I’m not worrying about you,” Martha huffs, crossing her arms. “You’re a shithead,” she adds, ignoring John’s admonish of _Language!_

“ _And_ you swear like a sailor,” Martha finishes.

“Well, thank you for not caring about me,” John jokes, checking his watch. “We should get dinner ready,” he says. “Looks like Dad’s not joining us tonight.”

Martha nods, looking a little disappointed at that, but John’s secretly happy. He hadn’t wanted to ruin a dinner with his...news.

After they eat, Mary and Henry Jr. flick on some TV show neither he or Martha have any interest in seeing. The two sit back down on the couch, Martha on her phone, and John wringing his hands nervously, waiting for his father.

When the front door opens, his siblings perk up at the sight of their father while John sucks in a breath. His father smiles at them all before disappearing upstairs. His siblings deflate a little, and he knows that they want more attention.

He waits until his father comes back downstairs and everyone is together in the living room before clearing his throat.

“Um,” he says, voice wavering just a little. “I have, um, something to say…”

Four pairs of eyes stare back at him and John wants to sink into the couch. “I’m…” He hesitates, unsure what to say, as if he hadn’t been practicing all day. “I’m gay.” The moment the words leave his mouth, everyone stares at him shock, and he wants to crawl back into the closet.

That evening is full of questions and shouting and yelling and crying, until his father stares at him, with a mix of emotions (because John’s his favorite child, and John’s his eldest son, and John’s his pride and joy, and John’s everything that he's against) and tells him to go upstairs and they’ll talk about his _condition_ tomorrow.

He locks himself in the bathroom, sinking down against the door. The tears come steadily, relentless and unforgiving. He wants his mother and his younger brother back from the dead. He wants to get rid of whatever sickness runs through him.

He picks up a blade and presses it against his wrists.

The stars run red that night.

* * *

Stars don’t shine in New York City, John thinks, as he fiddles with his key absentmindedly, trying to find his room in Columbia. Bright artificial lights do instead.

He finally spots his room, rushing over to open it. The door’s unlocked already and he swings it open easily, revealing his roommate hunched over on his bed, typing furiously away at his laptop.

His roommate looks up as he enters and John sucks in a breath.

He’s breathtaking, with shining eyes and a bright smile and he darts over to John and shakes his hand. “Alexander Hamilton,” he says. “But you can call me Alex.”

_Alexander Hamilton_. John could repeat that name forever. “John Laurens,” he replies. Alex withdraws his hand. John wishes he didn’t.

Alex, John soon finds out, talks a mile a minute, and John can hardly get a word in. He mentions, offhandedly, that he participated in a protest a while back and Alex’s eyes sparkle.

“Laurens, I like you a lot,” he declares, and John pretends that doesn’t affect him as much as it really does. 

“You hardly know me,” John said with a laugh and Alex shrugs, grinning.

“I have an excellent judge of character,” he declares and John rolls his eyes.

“You should come hang out with me and my friends later,” John offers. He doesn’t really know if the people he met today--Lafayette and Hercules--could count as friends. He only met them today, but, hey, he felt he needed all the friends he could get in college.

Alex practically beams at the invitation. “I’ve never had a group of friends before,” he admits. “Mostly because I manage to piss them off before I can befriend them.’

Their conversation lasts two minutes, maybe three minutes, and John has never felt this comfortable with anyone in his life. He tells Alex about moving from South Carolina and being the gay son of a conservative senator and Alex tells him about immigrating from the Caribbean and mentions how he’s bisexual and that “there’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait, John. Just you wait.” 

And then later, as they walk out of the dorm room together, Alex’s hand brushes his, and he swears that he can feel sparks, not electrical ones from the lights, but from stars, hidden in the New York City sky, only revealed with a touch, a smile, a glance from Alex. 

* * *

Falling in love with his best friend, John realizes, when they’re both halfway done with college, really fucking sucks. 

“John,” Alex complains, flinging himself onto _John’s_ bed and lying practically on top of him. “Can you kill me please?”

“What happened now?” John asks, amused.

“I’m so _tired_ ,” Alex huffs and John rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, maybe because you slept for barely three hours,” he points out. “What do you want _me_ to do?”

“ _John_ ,” Alex says again, moving to curl around John. “Shut up so I can sleep.”

“What, in my bed?” John swats at Alex, but he clings tighter to him (because this twenty year old has a maturity of one who is twelve), closing his eyes. He squints at him and sighs. “Okay. You’re asleep now.”

He manages to extract an arm from Alex’s death grip and grabs his phone to text his friends.

**John:** _sos_

**Herc:** _what happened now_

**John:** _the fucker fell asleep on me. I cant move_

**Laf:** _...is this a good thing or bad thing_

**John:** _BAD THING VERY BAD THING_

**John:** _i have a crush on him??? Or did u all forget that_

**Angelica:** _i wish i could forget_

**Eliza:** _not like you talk about him_

**Peggy:** _all the time_

**John:** _you guys are the worst_

John tosses his phone away, rolling his eyes at his friends. He glances back down and Alex, the human koala, tightens his hold on John. He sighs, raking a hand through Alex’s hair and resolves to lying there until Alex wakes up.

When he finally does, Alex blinks sleepily, and turns to look at John. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he mutters. “I have work to do.”

“You wanted to sleep, asshole!” John shoots back, pushing Alex’s shoulders, so he nearly falls off the bed.

John laughs, and Alex catches his eyes, something warm and bright and _loving_ in that stare, and it makes him feel as if he’s a shooting star and Alex is the one lucky enough to have seen it.

* * *

Here’s a memory:

John is ten and he’s running around the cool, slightly damp grass of a Fourth of July night. In his hands he holds a sparkler, bright and flashing, sparks occasionally flying off it and touching down on the ground.

His parents watch amusedly in the distance as he chases eight year old Martha and six year old Henry watched fascinatedly at the sparklers, too young to hold one by himself.

The stars are bright that night, standing stark white against the dark sky and John laughs, because he hasn’t a care in the world. Off in the distance, a firework blooms to light, a bright red blossom flowering across the sky.

He stops for a moment and stares, hardly noticing his sparkler sizzling out. It’s a perfect night and the grass is soft under his feet and the stars have never shone brighter.

* * *

The stars have never seemed darker.

John grits his teeth as some idiot spews shit the table next over at the bar the four of them--him, Lafayette, Hercules, and Alex frequent. Alex’s hands tighten on his glass and he stares stormily downwards. Hercules and Lafayette’s eyes flit towards one another, conveying a message that John could never interpret.

The man spits out something about _fucking immigrants_ and how they _never really belonged in this country anyone_ and Alex flinches.

John sucks in his breath. He sits up and wordlessly holds out his hand to Alex. A wicked little smile twitches on Alex’s face as he drops a hair tie into John’s palm and watches him tie up his hair and crack his knuckles.

John stands up and walks over to the table, calmly grabs the man and yanks him up from the table, draws back his hand and punches him square in the face.

There’s a second of stunned silence in which faces turn towards John before they come at him.

John laughs as he fights--he’ll admit it. He enjoys the feeling of his fists connecting to a body, the way a nose cracks under his hands, the metallic taste of blood in his math. A punch lands on his jaw and, well, _that_ doesn’t feel so nice.

Alex is cheering him on, screaming “Fuck them up for me, Laurens!” Lafayette is shaking his head, muttering “ _Mon Dieu,”_ and Hercules grabs John’s arm and wrenches him away from the fight.

“We’re leaving,” he says, and his voice is low and angry, and John sighs, because he knows Hercules hates when he fights.

They stumble out of the bar before the owner can kick them out, the crisp cool wind rushing down John’s lungs as he breathes in. The four part ways, Lafayette and Hercules going left, Alex and John going right. Alex promises to take care of John, before he’s waving goodbye and slipping his hand through John’s and tugging him towards the dorm room.

“You were amazing,” Alex says gleefully. “You _fucked him up_. He had to get all his little friends to help him.”

John laughs, the sound ringing out through the night air. “I did,” he says, grinning. “But my face really, _really_ hurts.”

“Shit, I forgot you were hit,” Alex says, carefully touching John’s face and examining it under the light of a streetlamp. “I’ll have to fix you up at home.”

“I can do it myself,” John protests, though he doesn’t really mind. “You don’t have to.”

“Nah,” Alex says easily. “I’ll do it.” And for some ridiculous reason, that simple statement is enough to make John blush and duck his head.

Alex doesn’t seem to notice and takes John’s hand once more, leading him towards the dormitory. He’s talking a mile a minute like he always does and John eventually tunes him out, focusing only on the cold wind, the crunch of the leftover fall leaves beneath his feet, the warmth of Alex’s hand.

Just as they near the dormitory, the lights inside flicker out. Alex backs up, frowning. “ _Que paso?_ ” he asks, looking around with a frown. “ _Un apagón?”_

John shrugs. “It must be a blackout,” he mutters, crossing his arms. He grabs Alex’s arm and tugs him forward. “Well, let’s get inside. Hopefully the power will be back soon.”

“John!” Alex gasps. “The stars?”

“The what?” John asks, walking back towards Alex and looking up and--

His breath catches in his throat.

Stars, hundreds of them, are painted on the sky. It’s so overwhelming, John has to take a step back. They’re glittering and glowing and it’s almost like he’s back in South Carolina again, except there are even more here. 

He laughs, staring up at the night sky, and twirls once. Alex grabs his wrists so they face each other. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” he asks, a radiant smile on his face. His eyes are bright and in the light of the moon, John can see the stars reflecting off of them.

“They are,” John whispers, and doesn’t take his eyes off Alex once.

* * *

John’s twenty one and he can swear he’s made out of stardust.

Alex is kissing him and he feels like he’s drowning, except he’s not, because every kiss is like a breath of life. His hands scrabble to find Alex’s and he pulls him closer until it feels as though they’re one.

“I’ve loved you for so long,” Alex breathes when they pull away. “So fucking long. I thought I could keep it in, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, and you were just _there_ and I just had to--”

John shuts him up with another kiss, and he can feel Alex’s lips curve up in a smile against his own.

“I love you too, you shithead,” John says, resting his forehead on Alex’s. “God, I love you so much.”

Alex blushes and hides his head in the crook of John’s neck, embarrassed, like they haven’t been making out for the past few minutes. “You’re a gift to this world, John Laurens,” he murmurs and presses kisses to his neck.

John leans his head back against the wall and laughs, and he sees galaxies.


End file.
